May 7th 2002 12:20UT – 12:50UT 53.2000ºN, 6.1000º W Coronado PST 400mm/8mmTVP/50X Windy/spitting rain Daler Paper/ Prismalo Watercolour Pencil.
It was a little windy when I started, but I was keen to have a go and was up before 8am even though it was a bank holiday. The sun was in and out, it was raining on and off even while the sun is shining. A little blue sky got me out with the PST, and to my delight there were several proms along the western limb, each side of 0953. I used a watercolour pencil and this was easier for the detail in the proms. It is fabulous to be observing these busy outbursts from my garden. I have been looking at clouds in the sky and noticed how the moisture on the edges forms arcs like the proms attached to the sun. They also break away in puffs eventually and more arcs are formed, nature often has parallel patterns. Watching large clouds may be a good exercise for watching tiny proms on the suns profile. More solar sketches are here, scroll down the page for solar paintings.
11/05/02 - H-alpha view of the solar disk 23:45 UT. What's H-alpha? The red light of hydrogen alpha is a very prominent feature in the solar light spectrum since hydrogen makes up 75% of the outer layers of the sun. The bright regions around sunspots, called plages, and brilliant solar flares are easily seen at this wavelength, and on this sketch. Filaments, which are vivid string-like regions, and sunspots, which are large blotches on the solar surface, appear dark. Filaments are common sources of eruptions. Filaments on the solar limb appear bright against the blackness of space.
I used a Televue Ranger 70mm (480mm) refractor, using a Vixen Lanthanum 14mm eyepiece and a Coronado 60mm SolarMax H-Alpha filter. I made 4 sketches of the sun on this particular day, November 5, 2002. You can see prominences on the limb, and wild sunspots on the Sun on this day. Start here for the 4 sketches on this day. For a nice 60 day solar rotation sketch-a-thon, which fulfilled the AL Sunspotter Program, click here for my Astronomical League Sunspotter sketches, mostly in white light, some in H-Alpha.